From: "Teresa" <ordunya-AT-ctv.es>
To: "Feyerabend list" <feyerabend-AT-lists.driftline.org>
Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2006 01:02:01 +0100
Subject: [PKF] Magicians, scientists and other creatures


As a literary experience into the Feyerabend work about proliferation I submit to the list this paper called "Magicians, scientists and other creatures".

Waiting for your remarks. Best wishes Teresa Ordunya




 

 

 

 

 

Magicians, scientists and other creatures
by Teresa Ordunya

 

 

 

 

 

---" All hail, Macbeth, that shall be king hereafter!"

In this way the Witches salute Macbeth in the Act 1 Scene 3 of the Shakespearean tragedy, and Macbeth, indeed, becomes king.

After this meeting, many alternative explanations could be offered for the behavior of Macbeth's character, till now only a thane of Glamis and without a crown in the horizon: is Macbeth, simply, a murderer seeking power? is he an illuminist? is he a fatum-maker? is he a victim of evil spell or is he a clever creature who, taking into account the standards of the "basic knowledge" of his epoch; cannot ignore what the witches said and so he, rationally, makes use of it?

But the prediction has a corollary in the 1=AA Scene of the Act 4=BA when the Third Apparition says:. "Macbeth shall never vanquished be, until Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill shall come against him". " That will never be" reply Macbeth and argues  "Who can impress the forest bid the tree unfix his earth-bound root?" To conclude "Sweet bodements! Good!. He never takes into account defeat. There is no place in Macbeth's logic for this kind of conditional, it might be not rational to accept it: there are not enough evidences to support this. Nevertheless, the confirmative evidence appears: Birman forest walks and Macbeth is defeated. Magic has proved its effectiveness.

Very often modern science gives us proof of its effectiveness: it is FASCINATING!. Human creatures of the twenty-first century assume in their lives the scientific standards as Macbeth assume in his own life the standards of the witches.

The "basic knowledge" of magic is ruled by some standards neither confused nor irrationals that function as elements of valuation, decision and prediction. It is true that magic has proved its effectiveness: traditional "esoteric arts" such astrology, numerology, quirology or cartomancy, had an influence upon people and had ,even, helped along the organization and survival of advanced civilizations like the Egiptians or the Assyrian Babylonian.

The practice of magic is not something of the past. Nowadays anyone can face it walking about the Ej'Ma square in Marrakech, chewing a "catipa" on top of the mountains in Huanchaco or, get it, by previous appointment, in a specialized urban center.

Long time ago, magic run the place of myth that Feyerabend confers on science: magic reason supports the standards of " basic knowledge" of that epoch as scientific reason supports the standards of this epoch. Although scientific and magic standards differ, they both support "basic knowledges" whose aim is to prove their efectiveness over reality. The magician as well as the scientist  assumes some basic knowledge standards and they both protect from external agressions and use them as extremely powerful weapons against the theories in concurrence. Scientists and magicians act as people initiated in diverse kinds of knowledge sects. They have methods, simbologies and rituals of their own. Making use of this parochial background, they measure, shape and order their plots: they put names, discover rules, set up theories and, indeed, translate the universe into invented cosmogonies.

These Lords of light and darkness --- scientists and magicians --- use sign language, which uninitiated creatures are not acquainted with and therefore are convinced by their propaganda, fascinated by their practice and, occasionally, slaved by their methods. The gap between clans became more and more clear and over that breaking down the Lords build the pyramid of their power. The card game of knowledge leaves place to the chess of power: strategy becomes significant.

Macbeth is a creature who listens to the Lords and takes his own decisions. He is not an initiated in the witches' language: he does not catch the art of its simbology so that he is defeated and loses his life. Rationally he refuses a program of action that he does not feel progressive: his defeat and death. Saying in Lakatos' words, Macbeth does not recognize that the empirical growing is advanced theoretically in the prediction. Unveiling further strategies, the Apparition that predicts the advancement of the Birman forest is a crowned baby holding a brough in the right hand . The language of the Lords becomes conspicuous but Macbeth does not know the method of fitting. The evidence involved in the prediction does not result understandable for the creature and Macbeth yields to the strategy of Lords because he does not know the moving keys of the chess board.

 

In the seventeen century Galileo Galilei, citizen of Venice, yes!, he knows the keys. The traslation of the universe done by the Lords is not unknown to him: during seventeen years in Padua and three in Pisa he had explained the Ptolomeic system. Nevertheless, in 1610 this curious creature  after looking at the sky through a tube with two lenses, a Netherlandish invention, did not hesitate in joining the Copernican cosmogony.

In the cards game of knowledge Galileo include a new card: " a superior and better sense", the telescopy. He plays to the same game of the Lords but he does not play it in the same way: he has a tool that helps him to see a different universe. Playing the game he finds the way to play Mercury between two unknowns --- the telescopic observation ( experience?) and the Copernican system ( theory?)--- rationally defending an explanation of the universe blocked in his epoch, which he helps progress using a peculiar interpretation of the evidence enveloped in silked ad hoc hipotesis and decorated with golden propaganda. The same experiences used as proof in earliers cosmogonies are now interpreted in a new observational language, valued by differents standards and presented as confirmations of another explanative theory.

Feyerabend describes the situation  in "Problems of Empiricism, Part II(page 318) as " a change of experience that allow us to accommodate the Copernican doctrine"  and further "the attempt to support Copernicus makes experience fluid in the very same manner in which it makes the heavens fluid". Galileo discovers that the keys of the chess board are not rigid: it can be interpreted from different points of view and allow the production of alternative explanations. The foundations of the Lords' strategy are shaken  and their power is questioned by somebody who transforms the evidence as a magician and use the experience as a scientist: a bold creature who plays the game of observation and invention.

In the streets, showing his toy --- the telescopy ---  and using the old argument of anamnesis that naive creature tries to convince the Lords to play with his pack but he does not get them. The little Galileo knows another method to traslate the universe into a language able to FASCINATE, but, at the moment, only with an ally: the reasonable interpretations. The frightened Lords appeals to their most powerfull ally: ideology. 

On the 22 June of 1633, Galileo Galilei revokes in front of the Santa Inquisition his theory of the movement of the earth. But the language that disguises Italy during the Carnivals of 1632 keeps on talking and the degenerate Copernican program valued from those new observationals standards is going to obtain external evidence of confirmation: " the butterfly emerges when the caterpillar has reached its lowest state of degeneration" asserts Feyerabend in "On the critique of scientific reason" (page 121) . Since there is not  a way to measure the rationality or irrationality of one action if not from valuation standards previously choosen, so it is as rational gives support to progression or to degeneration.

Galileo Galilei is that creature who rationaly decide to take care in his degeneration of the Copernican caterpillar to favour its metamorphosis in Newtonian butterfly. Half-opening the doors of perception he catches a glimpse of another universe but the Lords do not give him  the option to explain it.

Yet once the doors are opened  --- Aldoux Huxley and others helped ---- James Douglas Morrison creature of the twenth century, citizen of Los Angeles, poet, film director, musician and singer of the  group The Doors, in december of 1967, declare to his audience in Newhaven, Connecticut:

"before I sink into the big sleep

I want to hear, I want to hear

the scream of the butterfly"

One can play the cards game of knowledge with every pack: Jimmy knows that this scream can evidence  an universe. In his first poetic work "The Lords: Notes on Vision" he proposes:  "Destroy roofs, walls, look at all the rooms at once" . Along the book he uncovers the game of the Lords --- they have secret entries and they know how to disguise themselves--- he says. Jimmy plays disguises too --- all disguises --- and that memorable night he decides to disguise himself as something so romantic as the language of a butterfly. He does not explain anything, does not rationally defend his program, instead, using the resources of a showman Dionisios overflows the stage, provoking the Lords with explicit ignorance for their standards.

Jimmy becomes a performer of his own character playing to perform the reason of his action.

" A good drama use physical demostrations of the reason to irritate our senses and  to trouble our feelings in a way that it goes to a soft and "objetive" appreciation" say Feyerabend in "Lets make more movies!" and with him we can conclude that what Jimmy does is nothing else but to show the "features of his argument". Because of that in the same night he will end screaming --- more than singing --- to the face of the " little men in blue" --- the police --- what could be the leit-motiv of his tragedy or, may be, one of the standards of the "basic knowledge" of his epoch:

"We want the world

and we want it, here

NOW!"

That night the keys of the board lose their univocal quality: disguise becomes the most effective strategy. The game of knowledge becomes an entertaining activity which uses all the methods and disguises itself as every language, choosing with opportunism its evaluation standards.

The urge to know --- the world NOW! --- promotes that  every nigth Jimmy plays to invent  a traslation of the universe into a different disguise. He plays to be a rider on the storm, a spy, a chaman. and also, the lizard king : the disguise of his disguises. In 1970, one year before his dead at 27 --- " all the games contain the idea of death" he wrote in a poem --- he sings:

I am the lizard king

I can do anything

Perhaps we can add: and "anything goes", putting it in Feyerabend terms. In his book "Science in a free society" (page 38) we can read: " A scientist, an artist, a citizen is not like a child who needs papa methodology and mama rationality to give him security and direction, he can take care of himself, for he is the inventor not only of laws, theories, pictures, plays, forms of music ...but also of entire world views, he is the inventor of entire forms of life". So then the creatures are able to choose the opportunistic  valuation standards, to invent their own language of traslation and to disguise themselves at it. In a free society magic and science could be recognized as alternative ways to play the game of knowledge: many disguises could result effectives and FASCINATING.

This way of thinking even though not free from risks --- relativism is one of them --- could give to the creatures the choice to invent their character instead of acting as puppets hanging on the theatre flies in a performance directed by the Lords.



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